Ukraine needs to boost its presence in Sub-Saharan Africa and shift from exporting raw materials to investing in processing, as current supplies amount to only $280 million per year in a market worth $10 trillion, said Artem Gudkov, head of the Ukrainian-African Trade Mission, at the Forbes Agro conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
“The total volume of the African market is about $10 trillion in GDP in terms of purchasing power parity. For Ukraine, this is a huge potential and an opportunity to gain its subjectivity. However, as of now, the total volume of Ukrainian exports to Sub-Saharan Africa is only $280 million per year for 1.2 billion people. We supply less there than to neighboring Bulgaria,” he stressed.
Gudkov said that Russia is waging a food war against Ukraine on this continent and has introduced an “all or nothing” policy. According to him, if individual countries plan to purchase agricultural products from someone other than Russia, the aggressor threatens to stop supplies to the region altogether.
According to the head of the trade mission, Russia is already moving towards total control of logistics. In particular, the aggressor is negotiating with the Tanzanian government to build its own processing terminal in the port of Dar es Salaam, which will enable it to dictate the terms of wheat and corn supplies across the entire east coast of Africa.
Gudkov believes that the time of “simple imports” is over, so Ukrainian agribusiness needs to integrate into value-added chains directly in the region. African governments and businesses are increasingly interested in the transfer of Ukrainian technologies, not just the purchase of raw materials.
He recalled the European Global Gateway program, which provides EUR 150 billion to finance projects in Africa. According to Gudkov, Ukrainian businesses can become stakeholders in these funds by exporting equipment, elevators, and engineering solutions rather than raw materials.
The expert noted that Ukraine’s experience of working in wartime is unique for African countries, which also face security risks. The mission is already discussing the potential for implementing Ukrainian agricultural processing clusters on the continent.
“We have the opportunity to turn our economic front into an offensive as well. Russia is actively exporting food products. If we cannot influence oil, we can destroy their food ties through our own expansion,” the head of the mission concluded.
The Ukrainian-African trade mission promotes the entry of domestic enterprises into the markets of Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the export of processing technologies, agricultural machinery, and the creation of joint ventures.
